Word Clouds Decals – How You Can Use It Improve Your Business

You’ve probably seen a word cloud — otherwise known as a wordle, word collage, tag cloud or text cloud — at some point in your online life. They’re usually sitting in the right margin of a WordPress blog or news website. A word cloud is a graphic image of text, with the size of each individual word depending on how frequently it is used. The more a word is mentioned, the larger it will appear. 

It’s easy to make your own word cloud, simply by copying and pasting an essay, letter or book passage into one of the many free word cloud generators available on the web. Not only is it fun to play around with these websites and apps, they can add a certain insight into the intent, mood, motivation, goals and opinions of the author.

Here’s one based on the United States Constitution:

In addition to being used as entertainment — or for a quick, cursory analysis of an email, news article or historical document — word clouds can also be used as wall art murals that can both inspire and motivate employees and customers alike. 

Here are some examples of how word cloud wall murals and office signs can help to foster a more productive and welcoming environment in any retail space or workplace:

Why Successful Companies Use Word Clouds

• Increasing Happiness and Reinforcing Group Cohesion – Studies have shown that a more attractive office or store will directly increase the happiness and morale of workers.  

This type of decoration can act as a welcome diversion or beautiful centerpiece in a company break room or professional office’s waiting room. Its words can either occupy someone’s private thoughts — or act as a casual conversation starter, allowing people an excuse to be friendlier. 

In addition to creating a cool wall decal or window decal to be used as “wandering-eye candy” or a conversation starter in a creative space or waiting area, a word cloud can really help to get people on board with your creative vision and business mission. 

• Getting People on Board with Your Mission (and Each Other) – Doing this is simple. Simply generate a word cloud from a piece of writing that captures the spirit of your company culture — such as a mission statement, famous quote or inspirational piece of literature — and use it as a conversation piece for your team. Over a tasty catered lunch, you can ask employees which word they most identify with or feel a connection to. 

This can be a great way to build stronger relations, encourage group bonding, as well as get to learn more about one other. The same thing can be accomplished with a focus group of customers or clients.

• Obtaining and Dissecting Feedback from Clients and Employees – While a word cloud may not constitute an in-depth examination of a writer’s mind; they can still reveal very telling details at a glance. They work especially well at pointing out certain trends and similarities among groups of different people. By constructing a word cloud from customer emails or employee suggestions, you’ll be able to flesh out what people really think about you and your business. 

From client “pain points”, such as wait times, prices and negative customer service experiences to employee “worker wants” — including incentives, benefits and ergonomic work stations — you can immediately know where to invest your time and capital. This allows for targeted improvements that will both maximize good will and help drive your company culture forward, both in real life (IRL) and on the internet. 

• Improving Search Engine Optimization and Managing Corporate Image – Another valuable data set gained from word clouding can help improve the Search Engine Optimization or SEO of your company web pages. In addition to making sure that you’re including the correct search terms for your industry sector, this method can also offer a view into what words your business’s online presence might be missing. 

While your body soap company website might be including popular keywords such as “hand sanitizer” “natural soap” and “sensitive skin” you may also want to also mention other products or relevant issues that are important to your customers’ specific needs and values. In-demand items like massage bars or herbal soaps, in addition to socially-conscious concerns such as animal testing and excessive packaging, can communicate to website visitors that they are in the right place for a number of different reasons. 

Feel free to print and hang your website word clouds around the office as wall decals or window decals in order to reinforce your company philosophy and help motivate your workforce.

A word cloud from a popular cosmetics company’s about page

Before you rush off to use the latest word cloud program, here are a few tips that will help guide you on your journey into the world of word collage:

Guidelines on Using Word Clouds for Your Business

1. Try different word cloud generators. From free apps available from popular software creators to new websites and startup programs, you’ll have many options to explore in order to find the one that works best for you. If you’re planning on creating a decal or sign with your word collage, you should pay special attention to visual qualities such as typefaces/fonts, color schemes and legibility. 
2. Use hyphens to separate word components that you want to remain grouped together in order to create qualifying phrases. Examples include important company descriptors such as “full-service”, “family-owned-local-business”, “environmentally-friendly” and “home-cooking-since-1987”.
3. When using word clouds to test the search engine effectiveness of your website, make sure to include both SEO-friendly keywords that maintain your “Google-juice”, as well as words and phrases you know your customers will look for and appreciate. Repeat desired terms often but not excessively — in order to ensure that content remains both compatible with search algorithms and enjoyable to read. Awkwardly shoehorning in words and phrases can be a big turn-off to your readers.  
4. Save your word cloud image as a vector file (.ai, .eps, .pdf, .svg) in order to ensure it can easily be scaled up for a large format wall graphic by a reputable graphics or sign company.
5. Many free generators will automatically save your text cloud to their public image gallery. Check the site or app’s privacy policies and default settings if this is an issue. 

For more information on printing out and installing a full-sized word cloud mural in your place of business, get in touch with the pros at Brooklyn Signs or check out our collection of motivational office art.